Outdoors vs Outdoorsy

Two people, one of whom is me, who probably don’t rip off pieces of their sleeves to use to wipe. But now that I think about it, I don’t know what shirt my friend is wearing under that Patagonia sweater….

I feel that I’m a well-rounded outdoorsperson, with a solid base in useful survival skills, mountain sense, and woodscraft. I grew up entertaining myself in our backyard, which essentially was the Alaskan wilderness. I would pick berries, explore the flora and fauna, and quite literally just crawl around out there for hours. Now I’m just as happy bopping around in the forest in Carhartts and flannel as I am climbing a mountain in $400 pants and ski gear that costs more than my car. I wear cotton sometimes when hiking, and find some of the “technical” gear available (Exhibit A: shirts that are supposed to keep you cool. HA HA HA no. I refer you back to cotton) just laughable. As you can see from the pic, I don’t even always wear “fishing gear” to fish (I’m not the one in the waders).

Typically we think of an “outdoorsman” as a person who hunts and fishes and rides four wheelers, while an “outdoorsy” person likes to climb or backcountry ski. I considered myself a person whose experience comfortably spans both worlds. But while having dinner with a pal last night, I realized that in fact I know very little about the outdoorsman world. My friend and I were trading funny stories, as is our wont, and we of course got into the topic of outdoor pooping gone wrong. I shared with him the story of one of my students crawling through his own poo pile and haplessly bringing the mess back to us when he handled group gear immediately after his bathroom misadventure. My friend, an Alaska Native who falls on the more Cabela’s-based side of outdoors gear, told me about a hunting trip that had featured a few scatalogical mishaps:

His hunting party of four had divided into teams of two. He was a member of the pair at the head of a valley, preparing to flush some deer down towards their companions, who had taken up a high position on a bluff. Just as they were about to start pushing the deer down the valley, nature called. “I have to shit,” one man proclaimed.

“Well, do it then,” said the other.

“Do you have any TP?” asked the first man.

“I’m not the one who has to shit,” said the other, by way of answer.

“All right,” said the first, and he began ripping at his shirt sleeve.

At this point I stopped my friend’s tale. “What do you mean, ripping at his shirt sleeve?”

“You can tell how many times a person has had to use the bathroom by how short their sleeves are; how many times they’ve had to rip off a piece.” He mimed sleeves getting shorter and shorter as they are sliced into service as TP.

I was nonplussed. “My entire world has changed. I’m going to be eyeing a lot of sleeves now. I had no idea this was a thing.”

“Well,” replied my friend, “The people who wear Patagonia probably do not use this method.”